


pride and Joy (the story of Joy Hill)

by American_Pandora



Series: all the silhouettes you've made [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Briony is a canon character, F/M, Gen, backstory fic, but all we know is that she is a common woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/American_Pandora/pseuds/American_Pandora
Summary: Briony was young when she and her family left Braavos, but even she knows you don't bring home the Sealord's brother in a drunken state.





	1. Briony of Braavos

**Author's Note:**

> Briony is a canon character mentioned in _The World of Ice and Fire._ All that's said about her is she's a common woman who is the mother to Gerion Lannister's bastard.

One of the few memories she has of her father is standing next to her mother on the docks at high noon, of him all but flying off the gangplank and them crashing into each other's arms. 

(She will only remember this in dreams, but she always thought the way he said her mother's name against her scalp made it a magic word. "Briony." He'd mutter, over and over again. "Briony. Briony. Briony.") 

Her mother, tanned from the sun and so dark next to her golden father. 

Father would then turn his eyes to her- happy and piercing, the most beautiful shade of green she's ever seen- and toss her in the air, squealing, and the sun would glint off the ocean and the shoe buckles of those around them and Father's golden hair. 

(She doesn't need to dream to remember how much love he put into her name. "Joy. Joy. My Joy. My pride and Joy.")

* * *

**280AC**

Briony Desrosa meets Gerion Lannister quite by accident. 

Her brother Matthew- first mate on Gerion's ship _The Sea Lion_ brings his captain home to sober up after a night out on Lannisport. 

Briony was young when she and her family left Braavos, but even she knows you don't bring home the Sealord's brother in a drunken state. 

She rather thinks it is a good thing it's her day off from hocking fish at the family stand with her mother, as she will no doubt be nursing Matthew through his hangover all day. 

At the first signs of noise- Briony is used to rising with the sun, and has been laying abed, enjoying the silence of the house in the morning, a rare thing- she dresses and goes into the kitchen, catching the door swinging on as a figure stumbles out to be violently sick in the gutter, by the sound of it. 

The tea is singing in its kettle and the porridge has just started to thicken in the pot when the figure all but crawls in the door. Briony has to do a double take when she sees messy sun-gold curls and clammy pale skin instead of Matthew's black ponytail and olive skin and honey gold eyes. 

Gerion Lannister is a true wreck, and Briony idly finds herself wondering if all castle-born are as poor at holding their liquor as this one. 

He looks at her with eyes of alarming green, like the Sealord's lantern, and not knowing protocol for this, she enquires, "Would m'lord like a spot of tea?" 

Their eyes meet and Briony cannot help but wonder what he thinks of her own, plain, brown- gold eyes. "I would, my lady. Thank you." 

Lord Lannister purses his lips and holds his heads in his hands, sitting at the end of their small and crowded table that barely holds their family of eight, while she readies their best tea ( _guest tea_ , mother called it, and Briony had never understood until this moment) and puts it in their best mug, wanting to impress the man sitting in her kitchen for reasons other than he's a Lannister. 

"Here you go, m'lord." Briony murmured as she served the man, looking at the ground even though all she wants is to see his beautiful eyes again. 

"Thank you, my lady." He takes the cup out of her hands gently, and it feels like she's been stung by an eel her father's catch sometimes brings in. 

He feels it, too, of the little gasp is anything to go by. "You can call me Briony if you like, m'lord, or Bri or Iony like most of the folk 'round 'ere do. I'm not much of a lady, I fear." 

It is silent for a moment, and she wonders if he is sipping his tea, as she is still staring at her bare feet on the hard packed dirt floor, at the way this too-short dress exposes her ankles in a way that the Westerosi frown upon.

"Briony." It is said contemplatively, but she reacts automatically, lifting her head up to find those green eyes staring at her intently, finding she couldn't turn away if she wanted. "Well, I think if I am to call you Briony, then you must call me Gerion. 'My Lord' is my brother, was my father, and will one day be my nephew. I'm just Gerion, your brother's Captain." 

"Gerion." She nods, before a horrific stench crosses her nose. The porridge! She has forgotten about the porridge! "Oh no!" 

The smell awakens Matthew, who complains even as she shoves tea in his hands and sends him outside to dunk his head in a barrel. 

She and Gerion do not speak again; whether it is due to him sobering up or because she has burned the porridge or because Matthew is awake now, she could not say. 

But he drinks cup after cup of tea and even eats the burned porridge she has redeemed by dumping a gluttonous amount of honey in (she and Matthew eat theirs, burned, with little milk. Food is food; they know what it is to be hungry). 

Lord Lannister- Gerion, she corrects herself- eventually speaks a few words to her brother before departing. 

He does not say goodbye to her, and it should not sting so.


	2. a ribbon for love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They must be careful, Gerion tells her, his brother is unaccepting and has unfond memories of their father's paramour, a whore who didn't know her station.

It seems Fate has another plan. 

As Briony leaves the house early the next morning to open the fish stand, she all but truly runs into Gerion Lannister right outside her door. 

"M'lord! Erm, Captain, umm, I mean, Gerion. How can I help you?" She asks.

He ducks his head, cheeks flaming red like a boy caught doing wrong. "I, er, well, came to repay your family's hospitality. And to apologize for being ill outside your door." It is then Briony notices the large sack of oats thrown over his right shoulder, the small glass jar in his left hand that contains tea leaves no doubt so fine Mother will never use them unless the God of Many Faces himself comes calling. 

It is obvious this man has been around what the Westerosi call lowborn- in Braavos they are called the working class- and knows that they will not turn down charity given in the guise of thanking hosts and help given. 

"You are too kind, Gerion." She takes the lea leaves and puts them in the up high cabinet. Then, creeping into the boys' room, she nudges Weston awake with the toe of her sandal and hisses about the bag of oats she placed on top of the kitchen table.

He blinks at her owlishly, his fourteen year old body not fully comprehending, but she leaves before he can ask anything, because the man who kept her tossing and turning all night is _back_ and she is not about to let him escape this time. 

Her heart catches in her throat to see him standing in front of Mother's front yard garden. "Gerion." She breathes and he turns around and the dawn sunlight catches in his hair and he looks like a seraph and she wants to cry at the beauty of it all. 

Gerion smiles- a nervous smile- and swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. 

"I- err- also had this. For you. But it's more just for you and not your family, it's a thanks for your kindness yesterday, for nursing me through the worst hangover I've had in years." He laughs, nervously, "Just- here." 

He shoves a beautiful red hair ribbon- Lannister red- into her hand, and the same feeling of being shocked that she had experienced yesterday threatens to overtake her again. 

The ribbon is beautiful, if a little crumpled from being smashed in his fist, and not frayed even the tiniest bit. 

It is the finest, brightest thing she has ever owned. She runs the silk through her fingers surreptitiously as she takes her hair out to re-plait it. 

Gerion watches her nervously, but she is not unaware of the way his eyes linger with something that is not quite hunger. "Briony, may I walk you to the docks this morning?" 

She can't speak but to nod and his smile is the sun itself.

* * *

They must be careful, Gerion tells her, his brother is unaccepting and has unfond memories of their father's paramour, a whore who didn't know her station. 

But he buys something from their family fish stand every day, even on the days she is not working, never haggling the price (she had tried with him, once, and he'd somehow _risen_ the cost of the clam; he lets Leda practice her haggling on him, though, and that is greatly entertaining). 

She pretends to escort Matthew home from the boat docks every evening, and Gerion will either invite himself or Matthew will invite him for his sister.

(It's also good that they have an escort, a witness, but Briony rages silently sometimes that they cannot be together openly. But she is only the daughter of a Braavosi fisherman and he is a Lannister of Casterly Rock.)


	3. you be the anchor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briony does not try to stop him from going, because if she is his wife in the eyes of the gods but not men, then the ocean is his mistress in the eyes of both.

**281**

He is 26 and she is 21 the first time they lay together. 

It is beautiful, and all she could ever have wanted. They curl on his bed in the Captain's Chamber afterward, the first time she has ever been in it, the ocean gently swaying them on the otherwise abandoned boat. 

( _The Sea Lion_ is Gerion's home, more so than Casterly Rock, Briony knows, and him sharing this cramped chamber, walled from floor to ceiling with maps of different oceans is him sharing his heart. The Captain's Chamber rings with sacredness to Gerion, just like the act they performed, and her now torn maidenhead, are sacred to Briony.)

She falls asleep that night, imagining traveling the world with him on this boat. Just her and him and a babe.

* * *

The next morning he brings her a cup of moon tea and a necklace, a long gold chain with a small golden anchor on it. 

The betrayal she feels at the moon tea in his hands must be greatly evident, for he puts it down and hurriedly moves to kneel between her knees. He, on the floor and her, on the bed, those bright green eyes lock onto hers even though she wishes she could pull away. 

"Briony," he intones seriously, normal laughing demeanor all gone, "Someday we will have babes together, you and I. But that day is not today, my love, and for that, I am more sorry than you could ever imagine."

* * *

Gerion comes and goes with the tides, taking Matthew with him at first and then eventually Galvin as well. They are gone for moons at a time.

Briony does not try to stop him from going, because if she is his wife in the eyes of the gods but not men, then the ocean is his mistress in the eyes of both. 

As Lannisport whispers about The Sea Lion's kept woman and wonders at her identity, she waits.


	4. what stories are made of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He sneaks an ancient Lannister marriage cloak out of the Castle- admitting that his sister-in-law, _the_ Lady Lannister, some Tully girl from the Riverlands or other had helped him, thought it so romantic and sighed to keep her tears in, promising to keep their secret.

**287**

They wed after Gerion meets his new niece and nephew for the first time. 

(' _A second set of golden twins for Tywin_ ,' he laughs, and Briony notices the bitterness that sits on his tongue at the words. ' _At least Lysa is happy._ '

They give her family two days notice, and Mother and Leda cluck at them and the gifts he brings them. (White fabric, salt, sugar, tea, flour; they are richer than they know what to do with.) 

Between she, Mother and Leda they manage to pull together a workable white dress in a single night. 

For her maiden cloak, she wears her heavy waterproof sealskin cloak- a long ago gift from her soon to be _husband_ , she thinks with glee. 

He sneaks an ancient Lannister marriage cloak out of the Castle- admitting that his sister-in-law, _the_ Lady Lannister, some Tully girl from the Riverlands or other had helped him, thought it so romantic and sighed to keep her tears in, promising to keep their secret. 

A small audience attends. Her family- Ma, Da, Arwyn, Matthew, Weston, Leda and Galvin- and the few crew members that do not include her brothers- only five- that he trusts not to betray their secret to Tywin. 

( _She wants to ask about the short man with mismatched eyes and acerbic laughter who keeps his cloak up, and if he is who she suspects he is, before reasoning that Gerion will tell her, in time, if it is safe for her to know._ )

As the Septon pronounces them "one in the eyes of Gods and Men" and he kisses her like he is drowning and she is the only one who could ever save him, as she wears his colors and his cloak, Briony Desrosa Lannister wonders if this is what it's like to love someone and not have to hide it.

That night on his boat, as he undresses her piece by piece in a way he hasn't in so long, he sits her at the edge of the bed and kneels between her legs like he did so long ago and says in a near pleading tone, clover green eyes locked on honey brown, 

"Briony, today is that day. Let me give you a babe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know Joy Hill is a bastard and I've just married her parents, but stick with me here.


	5. the joy of any pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Mother and Leda and the midwife make sympathetic noises, they do not understand, _Gerion is not here, she can't have this baby without him_.

**288**

The babe comes into this world a little more than a moon early, and all Briony can think is ' _no, not yet, not yet baby, your father isn't back yet._ ' 

She tries to hold her contractions back, but the whimpering she makes travels through the house and alerts her mother (as part of her bride gift, Gerion had the outside of the house re-bricked, the cellar expanded and two rooms built for the purpose of housing Briony and her husband and their child), who then alerts her sister, who alerts the midwife down the road. 

And while Mother and Leda and the midwife make sympathetic noises, they do not understand, _Gerion is not here, she can't have this baby without him_. 

Briony rides waves of pain, images herself as a ship anchoring itself through a mighty storm. She doesn't know which parts she speaks aloud, but she runs a continuos mental dialogue: ' _no stop stop Gerion isn't here, I can't have this baby without him stop body stop baby stop no, not yet, not yet baby, your father isn't back yet_. 

Then there's a disjointed voice saying ' _Guess again._ ' and strong, suntanned arms that smell of the sea and sweat. Gerion whispers into her ear that she is strong, she can do this, and Briony buckles down and screams and brings forth a daughter. 

A daughter with her own dark hair and skin already sunkissed and her father's eyes. 

"Our babe." Briony whispers, once she and Gerion have been given some time to bond with their daughter. She leans her back against her husband's chest, who is no doubt exhausted from his dramatic return but refusing to rest. 

As their daughter suckles heartily, Gerion replies, "Aye. She'd be the joy of any pride." Her husband pulls her closer in an apology for the lion pun. "She's our pride and joy." 

"She's the Joy of our pride." Briony whispers. "Our Joy." 

The child's large eyes- just like Gerion's, as green as a clover patch- open to turn toward them.


	6. Lannister business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerion does little trips to other parts of Westeros- King's Landing, mostly, but he never truly goes far and he is never gone longer than three moons and so Briony never tries to keep him or hold him back.

**291**

He is there when Joy lifts her head up for the first time, when she first sits herself up all by herself, when she crawls and takes her first steps and when Joy says her first words. 

Gerion stays with them until shortly before Joy is three; his brother thinks he is out looking for Brightroar, the lost Valyrian sword, when truly Gerion and her brothers and a silent partner have started a shipping company to supplement her family's fishing business. Gerion does little trips to other parts of Westeros- King's Landing, mostly, but he never truly goes far and he is never gone longer than three moons and so Briony never tries to keep him or hold him back.

Until his brother orders him to Braavos. 

When she asks, all Gerion will tell her is 'Lannister business,' mouth set in a grim line. He should not be gone more than a few months, he tells her, and though she nods her head something inside her doesn't quite believe it.

(It must be with either the Faceless Men or the Iron Bank, because that is truly the only sort of business of note any Lannister could have with Braavos. A life or a loan, and Briony hugs her daughter closer.) 

The day that Gerion departs, the funny little man that Briony is sure is the one they call The Imp of Lannister joins the family of crew members of _The Sea Lion_ to see the sailors off. 

He looks upon Joy and Briony with what she can only term longing. The sort of longing one has when you once had the same, only to have it taken away from you.

As the crew packs up- Galvin says goodbye to his girl, Matthew says goodbye to who Briony knows is his main girl even if he has a woman in every port he stops at- Gerion, Briony, and the little man who is introduced as Tyrion Lannister, Gerion's nephew- huddle together. 

"My love, should you or Joy have any need of anything, should she be injured or you become ill, please let Tyrion know. He'll take care of you both." 

Tyrion does his best to bow, and Joy, who clings to her skirts, giggles at her cousin who is old enough to be her father. "Anything you or your daughter or your family could possibly need. All you have to do is come to The Featherbed or The Scarlet Dress- those are the brothels I own. Ask for me or," Tyrion tosses his head back to a large, hulking man, "Bronn if I can't be reached. You can also find me through Arwyn or Weston." 

"Why would Arwyn or Weston know where to find you?" She asks, confused, and Gerion and Tyrion grin at one another. 

"Briony, meet the silent partner of Lighthouse Shipping." The laughter is back in her husband's voice, and she is glad of it. 

Uncle and nephew laugh together, and Joy starts to giggle as well, like she is wont to do whenever her Father laughs. 

Then suddenly the ship's bell rings, and Gerion is serious again. He looks to Tyrion, who nods, and extracts a piece of fine and heavy looking parchment from inside his doublet. 

"Briony, if anything happens, Tyrion will take care of you. But this parchment is official and says that you are my wife and Joy is my legitimate daughter. My nephew has one copy, but this one is yours. If for some reason you would ever need to get into the castle, this has my seal on it and the official Lannister seal." Something in Briony's chest tightens and the sour taste in her mouth can only be called premonition. 

"Nothing'll happen. You'll come back and we'll live as a family again and everything will be fine." 

"Of course." He says, scooping up Joy. "Of course we will." 

The ship's bell rings one last time, to warn of imminent departure. 

Gerion pats his nephew on the back, scoops up Joy, and pulls Briony in close for one last kiss. 

She and Tyrion watch _The Sea Lion_ until it is gone, out of sight, and Joy has cried herself to sleep in her arms. 

(That night, in her bed that feels too big even with Joy cuddled up next to her, she tries not to think that the kiss tasted like a goodbye.)


	7. the flood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Joy walks the docks and feels a sadness she associates with the death of her mother. And sometimes she looks at the ocean and feels warmth and love that Joy associates with her family.

Joy doesn't understand how one minute Mama is there, belly large and saying what a good big sister she'll be, and then the next she is gone in a tide of blood, drops of crimson everywhere and screams and Nana crying, crying, crying and Baba scoops her up to take her to Uncle Arwyn's house and he is crying too and something bad must have happened because Baba _never_ cries. 

The little man who Joy calls uncle but who isn't really her uncle, not like Arwyn and Matthew and Weston and Galvin are comes around a few days later and offers to take her, but she doesn't know this. She just knows that Nana and Baba yell at him and he takes it. That their anger is the only emotion this house has seen since Mama went away. When he leaves, the ghosts, in their grief, resume the haunting of people and the rooms encased in grey brick.

* * *

**293**

Joy grows up in the same house as her mother, speaks Braavosi like her mother did (but not often), and is never hungry the way her mother was. Her dresses are never too short and she always has a bright new hair ribbon, even if her favorite is an old, frayed scarlet one that she wears as bracelet. 

Sometimes Joy walks the docks and feels a sadness she associates with the death of her mother. And sometimes she looks at the ocean and feels warmth and love that Joy associates with her family.

* * *

It starts again, Joy going to play pounce on Baba one morning, to chide him for being lazy and sleeping in on the day that isn't his day off, and she sees raindrops and puddles of blood from his eyes, his nose and his ears and then Nana is screaming (was Joy screaming first?) and Aunt Leda grabs her and all but throws her into the garden in the front yard and no one answers when she screams _Why won't Baba wake up_? 

Aunt Leda packs a knapsack full of Joy's important items (her three dresses, a golden necklace with an anchor, Gerion's diaries and the letter claiming Joy as his daughter) and sends Leda to the midwife's house, just down the road. 

The midwife alerts the healer next door to the sickness at the Desrosa home and walks Joy to her uncle's house.

(Joy's last sight of her Nana is her face, violently purple, and drops of crimson on a white handkerchief. Her last sight of her Aunt Leda is her standing in the doorway, her lip in between her teeth and eyebrows knit together, face pale. Joy doesn't know this, but her aunt watches her go until she is out of sight.)

Joy only stays at Uncle Arwyn's for a night, and he keeps her cousins away from her and his wife Dyna looks at her like she's a monster. Uncle Weston comes over and won't even look at her; her two uncles talk quietly with their heads together as Arwyn's children play around her and she is forced to stay in the front room.

* * *

Joy doesn't surface from her pallet the next morning, and when Arwyn goes to investigate he finds his niece swimming in her sweat as her body fights a fever. 

It leaves him with no choice, only firming the conviction that they should dump Briony's brat on her husband's family. He'd tried to convince Weston of it yesterday, but his brother, genius with numbers as he is, refused to see the numbers on this. 

Arwyn carries his niece to The Featherbed- Weston had pointed it out to him years ago, he was the only one able to read in their family- remembering it only by its sign of a brightly painted plush & pillowed bed. 

Then, he asks for a man name Tyrion.


	8. the price of rising high

Joy, deep in her fever, will never know of the argument that takes place above her bed when Tyrion presents his father with Gerion's letter. 

(He knows his Father will not react well, that his Father is already enraged with him for not throwing the child and her uncle out. So he decides that, no matter what happens, he will keep his copy of Gerion's proclamation and when Tywin finally kicks the bucket one day, he will present it to Tommen. Besides, a Lannister bastard is still better than any other non-Lannister, in his Father's eyes.)

Tywin is all but shaking in his boots. "Gerion would do this. He never had any regard for the Lannister name, and to marry a common woman? No." He says, pinching the bridge of his nose, "They were never married." 

"But Tywin-" Uncle Kevan rarely argues against his older brother, "In the eyes of the Gods, they were married. Our brother married a common woman. Is this child not deserving of the name Lannis-" 

"The only people deserving of the name Lannister are those that I say are." Tywin nearly barks at his brother. "And besides, the Gods have seen... fit to unmarry a couple before." 

Tywin's eyes bore in to his back, and Tyrion tightens his fists. _Tysha_ , he thinks, _He's talking about me and Tysha_. 

"Kevan, you'll take the girl into your household. Make sure you find a good Septa to beat out whatever lowborn manners have been engrained in her. She'll become a companion to Myrcella in time." Tywin says, on his way out the door. Uncle Kevan nods, and Tyrion knows this will be the last time he can see his cousin who calls him Uncle in a long time. 

For his plan to work, she'll have to forget him.

"Please, Joy, forgive me for this." He murmurs as he brings her too-warm hand up to his mouth and kisses it gently, tacking on silently ' _Forgive me, Uncle Gerion. Forgive me, Briony._ '


End file.
